


Moon Burdened

by Nonplayer_Character



Category: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-08-28 00:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16713367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonplayer_Character/pseuds/Nonplayer_Character
Summary: When moving forward is no longer an option, Kassandra instead goes back.





	1. All Things

**Author's Note:**

> Probably just going to be a short fic collection for Kassandra/Daphnae, the most underrated relationship in ac:odyessy.
> 
> I’m not over it, I never will be.

Leaving Daphnae feels like a defiance of the gods and a spear in the gut at once. There are aspects of Kassandra’s life she is sure are punishments dealt to test her, to what end she has long since stopped guessing at - perhaps the gods are malicious tyrants looking to be amused, high up on their mountain and untouchable, or perhaps the Fates have tangled Kassandra’s thread so that every turn in her journey is wrought with sadness and betrayal.

Perhaps it is none of those things and she simply looks like a blasphemous heathen when she throws her clay goblet of wine on the ground, far past drunk, and points an accusatory finger at the decrepit statue of Artemis.

“Artemis!” Kassandra shouts, her words, slurred, echo againt the walls and it is tragic, a comparison can be made to the woman whose name the phenomenon dishonors, who could not say the things she wanted either. “-you _fucking_ malakas...” 

What is there to say, really? It is Daphnae’s choice to follow the goddess of the hunt, Kassandra can no more sway the woman than she can sway the pantheon itself. 

“I just - thought I saw something real in her eyes...” Kassandra mutters, sits on the marble floor with a heavy thunk and clank of armor. 

Without Daphnae, the temple where they met seems hollow. There is so much life to it, so many vines and insects, and yet it feels like a void - Daphnae’s abandoned camp, the decaying structures, the dark night and the full moon and the earth and the ground cold as ice beneath her. 

And Daphnae somewhere out there, alive and hating Kassandra with every fiber of her being - it must be warm there, amidst the passion which had scorned her in the meeting that had become their last, when Kassandra thought it might turn into so many more.

“I could have loved her,” Kassandra tells Artemis. “If you’d have let me, I could have loved her.” 

But the temple is silent; no one hears her.


	2. The Edge of All Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it, yo!

Kassandra is beyond the sunrise, beyond the moon and the stars, sea-bound and never coming home.

Daphnae watches the horizon and wonders if Kassandra is the type of woman to turn around, or if she will sail so far out as to return to Pandora’s jar.

Gone is the madness, the heart ache, the rejection, and the chaos.

Gone is the mercenary, the eagle bearer.

In some small corner of the world there lies hope, sleeping under the night sky. Kassandra with her arms behind her head, recounting the demigods of legend and how they are preserved above.

And Daphnae, always a world away, praying to Artemis that the trials will one day end, and at the edge of that time, she will be permitted to find the woman she could have loved.


	3. An Odyssey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back on my bullshit!

It must be Daphnae who finds Kassandra; after what she has said, and what she has promised, Daphnae can neither hope nor expect that Kassandra will ever return to her.

Daphnae had vowed to kill her, and while she is certain that Kassandra is not concerned about her own death, the moment of foreign understanding in the woman’s gaze during their last encounter makes Daphnae think she would do anything to avoid any scenario in which Daphnae might suffer more than she has needed to suffer by continuing to wake up each morning.

Kassandra had denied Artemis a heroin on the premise of that belief.

So now, Daphnae must find Kassandra.

It takes her months; on her own, without her sisters, and indifferent to the confines of society, it is difficult, unfamiliar, and lonely.

When she sleeps, she sees Kassandra’s confusion and hurt, and her back, and the way she walks - always away - and the horizon is always a bit foggy, and the trees a bit barren and dead, and Daphnae sits up quietly in the cold, dark mornings wondering if her dreams are premonitions or memories.

A woman on the Silver Islands tells her Kassandra is fighting with the Spartan army, and this leads her to Sparta, where a man tells her she has set sail to Lesbos, where she is informed by yet another person that the mercenary is gone away from there as well. Each new lead leads elsewhere; the journey is long, Daphnae is tired. She eventually stops dreaming at all, which is equally likely to be a blessing as it is to be a curse. She is beginning to forget details, precious details: Kassandra, her sisters, her vows.

A year in, Daphnae follows a lead and ends up at the Temple of Artemis where everything began, and if the Gods are poetic, there are no coincidences, and if their proclivity for drama is at work, then it is only too fitting.

Daphnae walks quietly through the decrepit ruins, notes that the alter is full of recent offerings; notes that her camp - previously abandoned - does not appear weather-worn.

From the direction of the cliff edge, Daphnae hears the crackling of fire, and when she investigates, the scene is worthy of worship.

Kassandra is asleep, curled around a lynx. Under the stars and the crescent moon, she looks like a goddess. Perhaps she always was one. Daphnae’s heart aches because the fates are cruel and the Gods inaudibly unfair.

And then she approaches. The lynx watches her, but seems otherwise unconcerned.

She sits down by the fire, the embers glowing but quickly fading-

and she waits.

Many things are uncertain, but the sun will rise; and with it, so will Kassandra.

* * *

 

_Can you forgive me?  
_


End file.
